Market Update – 9th July 2018 – AUD/USD At Two & A Half Week Highs As Markets Bounce

A busy week last week in which we saw Aussie retail sales higher and the local cash rate held steady at 1.5% is followed by a pretty quiet one this week. U.S non-farm payrolls (jobs numbers) rounded out the week on Friday night with the U.S jobs market remaining buoyant as 213,000 new jobs were created last month. Surprisingly however that growth in jobs was offset by an uptick in the unemployment rate from 3.8% to 4% which took a little of the shine of the report. The rise in the unemployment rate  caused the U.S Dollar to sell off which helped boost the AUD to fresh 3 week highs above 0.7400 vs. the Greenback.

U.S and European stocks rose on Friday night while commodities prices also performed better. Gold was the loser off quite substantially as risk aversion took a back seat. Not a lot of economic data out this week other than U.S CPI on Thursday night. CPI is a key number that the Federal Reserve watch in order to determine interest rates as a result volatility could increase going into Thursday night.

AUD EXCHANGE RATES:

AUD/USD – 0.7432

AUD/GBP – 0.5583

AUD/EUR – 0.6324

AUD/NZD – 1.0865

AUD/JPY – 82.180

USD/BTC – $6,730

OTHER MARKETS: 

All Ords (XAO) – 6,355

Gold – A$1,688/oz

Silver –  A$21.59/oz

WTI – US$72.38/barrel

DATA RELEASES TODAY:

JPY – BOJ Gov Kuroda Speaks at 10.30am

EUR – ECB President Draghi Speaks at 11.00pm